George Ellis is president of the Pennsylvania Coal Association. (CONTRIBUTED PHOTO )

June 13, 2011

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is considering two new rules, the transport rule and the utility Maximum Achievable Control Technology — MACT — rule, both of which would have a devastating impact on Pennsylvania's economy if implemented. The rules could lead to increased electricity rates and unemployment at a time when our economy is at best weak, and certainly fragile.

According to a recent analysis conducted by the National Economic Research Associates, and covered in high-traffic news outlets including the New York Times and Bloomberg News, the EPA's regulations would cost four jobs for every new clean energy job created and cause electricity rates to rise by 11 percent to 23 percent.

The proposed rules will require the installation of emission-control technologies at coal plants by roughly 2015 in unrealistic timetables while providing no flexibility to meet targeted reductions. The rules are potentially ruinous for Pennsylvania.

According to the analysis by National Economic Research Associates, some 59,000 years of total jobs — a job-year is one job for one year — in Pennsylvania will be eviscerated by 2020. Electricity rates will rise by more than 15 percent in our region.

In 2009, Pennsylvania households with annual incomes below $50,000, almost half of Pennsylvanians, spent an estimated 18 percent of their after-tax income on energy. Energy costs claimed 62 percent of the after-tax incomes of the commonwealth's poorest households earning less than $10,000.

High energy costs are burdening too many families in Pennsylvania and the situation is not improving — especially at the gas pump where the average cost for a gallon of gas here is around $3.70. To think about the strain this is putting on pocketbooks, consider that a gallon of gasoline was just $1.47 in 2001. This is not the time to make it more expensive to plug in cell phones, switch on lights, or turn on a computer.

To understand where our electrical power comes from in Pennsylvania, here are some numbers. Currently in Pennsylvania more than half of our electricity is generated by coal. The other half comes in like this: nuclear, about a third; natural gas, about one-eighth; renewables such as wind and solar, only a few percent.

All sources are necessary but without coal playing anchor, the math to keeping our power grid functioning and affordable simply doesn't work. The wind does not always blow and the sun does not always shine.

President Obama recently visited Pennsylvania for an energy speech and spoke about the importance of reducing our dependence on foreign sources of energy by utilizing domestic resources including coal. Fortunately we have enough coal in the United States to last 250 years and, on an energy equivalent basis, the 5,441 quadrillion Btu of American coal surpasses the 4,446 quadrillion Btu of oil from the Middle East.

With a resource base exceeding 24 billion tons, coal is by far Pennsylvania's most abundant, indigenous fuel source. Pennsylvania can continue to look to this fuel as a secure source to satisfy the commonwealth's need for affordable, reliable and increasingly clean energy. In fact, from 1970 to 2009, America's population has grown 48 percent, electricity generated by coal has increased 225 percent, but emissions of regulated pollutants from coal have decreased by 77 percent.

Pennsylvania is the nation's fourth leading coal-producing state, mining 60 million tons in 2009. In addition, the mining industry is a major contributor to Pennsylvania's economy. In 2008, its economic benefit to the commonwealth exceeded $7 billion and it is responsible for the creation of 41,500 direct and indirect jobs with a payroll exceeding $2.2 billion. Taxes on these wages netted more than $700 million to the coffers of federal, state and local governments. Fifty-nine of our 67 counties have coal-related businesses, and coal equipment and machinery are one of the few industrial sectors in our state experiencing growth.

Coal is the fuel that powers Pennsylvania's economy. It employs many of our citizens, and it keeps electricity prices affordable for our businesses to hire and to keep daylight in sight for working families struggling to make ends meet.

Hopefully, the EPA will give more thoughtful consideration of the impact of these proposed rules and make major revisions to them before great harm is done to our commonwealth.